Too Young
by DarylDixon'sgirl1985
Summary: World War II!AU. Neville Longbottom was never prepared to become the leader to a group of soldiers. He was never meant to be the man in charge but right now he has to be to get his men to believe in the war effort. Especially the new green soldiers fresh off the boat, like Colin Creevy.


**Hey everyone. This story was brought to you by 365 Prompts, The Insane Prompt List, and Paleontology: Known Dinosaur Fossils assignment on Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.**

**365 Prompts: 264. (word) rendezvous **

**The Insane Prompt List: 664. (song) Zombie by the Cranberries**

**Paleontology: Known Dinosaur Fossils assignment: Task 3 Write a fic set during World War II. The War must be prevalent.**

**Warning for World War II!AU, and mentions of character death. Word count is 757 words. I hope you all enjoy Too Young.**

The sounds of someone crying nearby woke Neville as he lay in his foxhole. It must have been one of the new recruits fresh off the boat. He was pretty sure of it. They always seemed to send to the green ones to Neville's squadron.

"Somebody shut him up," a voice calls, which sounds oddly close to Seamus's voice. "He'll give away our bloody positions to the Nazis."

Neville heaves a sigh as he crawls through the night to the foxhole of the sobbing man. He remembers being green like this too. He remembers that if weren't for Harry taking him under his wing he wouldn't last the first days here.

"Hey," he says dropping down next to the man, no boy, startling him. Staring down the barrel of a gun that is in the hands of one of his own men he silently curses. He hadn't thought this one through all the way. "It's alright soldier. I'm a friendly." He holds up his hands. "It's me, Neville."

"Neville," sniffles the voice of Colin Creevy, their youngest recruit. To be honest, Neville doesn't know how the kid even got here to begin with. But he's here now and he needs to be quieted down.

"Yeah. You alright, kid?" He motions for Colin to sit down with him.

"I didn't want to be here in the first place," Colin whimpers as the sounds of dropping bombs off in the distance sound off. "I didn't want to come here. I tried my hardest to fail all the physical tests and everything. I'm not cut out for a war like this, you see."

Neville wanted to ask if anyone really was cut out for a war like this but refrained from doing so. That wouldn't be kind at all and kindness was exactly what it would take to help this kid out of whatever was bothering him.

"It wouldn't be bad if they were just targeting me, you know?" he pauses as though trying to compose himself but fails as another sniffle comes from his direction. "They're already targeting people my younger brother Dennis's age. He was psyched that I got to go because then he'd end up joining whatever unit I was in."

"They haven't done that since Pearl Harbor was bombed and those brothers ended up dying all in one swoop," Neville informs him. "The war will probably be over by the time your brother's done basic, you know?"

"Or it could be still in full swing," Colin says, as a barrage of gunfire from the front lines goes off. "I don't want Dennis to have to face this. He's too young."

Neville knows how Colin feels. At one point he'd have considered each every man jack of them here too young to be fighting a war. But time and battle change your opinion of things and make you man.

"Sometimes we have to go through somethings we don't want to go through," Neville says, his years of being in this war coming to the forefront. "Sometimes our family's have to go through the pain of sending their children off to God knows what. That's just the way things work during war times."

"But I don't understand it," Colin says quietly. "I don't understand why it has to be that way."

"No one really does. It just is."

There's a noise off to the right, and not too soon Dean's head pokes through the foliage, a rare smile on his face. He's holding a message from their company commander that had just been delivered.

"Sir," Dean says animatedly, "this just came from the company commander with the 101st. We have orders to get up and rendezvous with him a click up the road. We've got the Nazi, bastards on the run."

"Go tell the others we move in out in a half hour," Neville said, watching as Dean raced off to deliver the orders. Maybe just maybe he would be making it back to Hannah for Valentine's Day this year. "See, kid, things are looking up for already, right?"

Colin nods, as he readies himself to move out. He looks exactly the way that Neville will always remember him. New and green and young. Not the way that he leaves the young man at the end of the battle they end up fighting that day. Bloody and dead. Perhaps they all really are too young to be fighting this war but that's not for himself. He's at least lived to fight another day and he's happy about that.

**I hope you all enjoyed Too Young.**


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